Tick, Tock
by PandoraHearts101
Summary: Kameron is a normal girl. Poker playing, gambling, grand theft auto. You know, the usual. What will happen when her world gets rocked when a mysterious girl appears? Thalia and OC. R&R! Flames will be used to cook marshmallows. Thalia.
1. Prologue

_Ba-dump._

_Ba-dump._

Kameron's heart raced as she scanned the faces of the people in front of her. Most of them struggled to keep their poker faces, but the small hint of a frown on all of their lips gave away just how much pressure they were in. She glanced quickly at her own cards.

"I'll raise you five hundred, girl," a man from the corner of the table grunted, stacking the piles of cash in the small, crude circle. The golden eyed-teen nodded, laying down a simple five bills. Each one had the face of Benjamin Franklin staring up at the ceiling.

The only thing that betrayed her own nervousness was the fact she repeatedly stroked her chocolate colored hair.

The same man puffed at his cigarette. His gaze flicked around the table, and as if he had shown a signal, everyone except the girl and himself laid down their cards. The two remaining players stared at each other. Finally, the girl in the glasses took a deep breath, and, pushing up her narrow glasses, nodded to the man. The two shoved their cards in the center, face up.

The man paled. "You've won yet again," he muttered. Kameron silently reached forwards and shoved the cash into a grocery bag which seemed to be already stuffed to the rim. She stood.

The girl bowed her head, once again pushing up her glasses. Her hand slipped into the handle of the cheap bag, and she let her arm swing for a second, as if to taunt the group of the seven or eight much older men in front of her. "Have a nice night, gentlemen," she mumbled, forcing herself to keep the emotionless façade going.

With that, she turned and left the humble coffee shop.

A smile replaced the grim line on her face, as she looked around in wonder. The streets of New York City at night never ceased to amaze her. Every time she looked, she would find something new that wasn't there the day before—the previous week, a limo had started parking in the handicapped spot at 7:00 sharp. Yesterday, she had caught someone in the limo, staring intently at her. She was only able to take in the electric blue eyes before the head, from the darkened window, moved out of sight. The stare had sent chills up her spine, and she wasn't able to sleep that night.

Her gaze fell upon said automobile. Like always, she felt an unexplainable urge to go forward and to stroke the black hood with her fingers—she had always loved cars—and so, even though the time was dreadfully late and she had a house to clean, she let her feet carry her to the sleek car. Once she arrived, her fingers grazed across the faint window.

The same head popped up again. Kameron gasped. She stumbled backwards a step, before realizing that, in fact, there was no head…it was just a reflection…

Before she had time to turn and see who had loomed behind her, she felt a sharp pain in the side of her neck. Her eyes, despite the fact she desperately tried to keep them pried open, fell shut. She collapsed.

* * *

Kameron stirred. She felt her finger twitch. Her eyes opened just a fraction. She lay there for a moment, trying to think about what had happened. She had stroked the limo, and—

She bolted upright, her golden orbs snapping completely open. She tried to make sense of all of the blurriness around her. Her hands fumbled around, felling the immediate space around her. Cloth. Something soft and springy below that. A sudden rise, then another hill of the soft substance. Then, wood.

Her eyebrows pushed together. She couldn't make sense of what was around her. A blurry figure moved, making its way across a space, and confronted her.

"A little lost without your glasses, are you?" a feminine-sounding voice inquired. She—Kameron thought—sounded amused.

She simply nodded.

The figure reached down and placed something on her hand. She quickly grabbed it, brushing her fingers around it to identify it. When she was certain that it was what she desired, she quickly set the thin frame on her face. She blinked a couple of times, then recoiled in shock, a small yelp coming from her lips.

The head had been 'sewn' onto a body. The distinctive electric blue color seemed to cut into her soul. The girl—now she was certain of it—had spiky, black hair, and wore a punk jacket, complete with the studs. A smirk was plastered upon her face as she calmly watched the brunette. After a silence between the two, the blackette sighed, shaking her head. "Jesus. Aren't going to say anything, are ya? Well, welcome to Camp Half-Blood."


	2. 1: Who's the new girl?

~~~Hey, guys! Thanks if you're on this.

Sorry I took so long to update. I'm not doing well in school and stuff, so I'm grounded…..but, bah. Screw it, if you guys want me to continue, I will. And sorry if it's a little sucky and brief and OOC….compared to my first chapter, though, brief is about 10 words of text….^^; And it's 3 in the morning as I write this.

Thanks and many kudos to;

Kingdom-of-TJ, Avenger of the Olympian Flame, TheAravis, and for a whopping 4 REVIEWS!!! Thanks, guys, for reading that. It makes my day that people think I'm a good enough writer to do things like that.

Yeah, yeah, I don't own PJatO, yada yada…. Stop torturing me! D:~~~~

* * *

After a moment of silence, all Kameron could say was, "Excuse me?"

The black-haired, young woman before her grinned widely. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. Or do you need a hearing aid or something to go with your glasses?"

"Again I say, excuse me?" the girl in the glasses said, looking and sounding slightly offended. Her hand brushed upwards at her face, tracing the metal wire over her freckled nose. "What…..what's Camp Half-Blood or…..whatever you said?"

Kameron took the chance to look around at her surroundings as the other girl collected her thoughts. It was strangely quiet, almost as if the sound from outside of the room was blotted out. Rows of cheaply-made beds were lined up against a wall, the very one she leaned against with a sigh.. On the parallel wall, carts that were stacked with what looked like vials filled with medication were crammed between stacks of various other assorted items. The ceiling was low, and the room itself was more of a hall than an actual room.

"Well, where do I start?" the girl with the blue eyes said sheepishly, startling Kameron. She scratched the back of her head. "I, um….oh! I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Thalia." She extended a hand. "And from the various murmurings in your sleep that I just happened to overhear, you're Kameron, correct?" The golden-eyed girl nodded slowly. She quickly grasped Thalia's hand, planning to draw it back as soon as possible, but Thalia clearly had different plans. She pulled a stumbling Kameron to her feet and dragged her to the door of the elongated room.

"I'll show you around," she decided. "As I tell you about this place, anyways."

"O-O-Okay," Kameron said, nodding quickly. "But do I get any say in this?"

"Definitely not," came Thalia's smug reply. "Now….um…."

As soon as the door creaked open, Kameron squeaked, covering her eyes with her arm as fast as she could. The sun, apparently, decided to be in just that angle to shine the most annoying way possible into her face. For a second, she couldn't see a thing, but once her eye adjusted and her arm dropped, she gasped in both amazement and horror.

"How long was I asleep?" she asked in a small voice.

"Oh, around three days," Thalia said. "Right now it's 5:00. Don't worry, your mother won't be worried about you or anything like that. When you were KO'd, I used your phone to call her. She knows you're staying and she's fine with it."

Kameron's mouth dropped open slightly as she stared disbelievingly at the blue-eyed girl.

Thalia glanced at Kameron, a small chuckle beginning to form under her breath. "Well, then, you must be hungry, right? Come on, let's go to the mess hall. Tonight there's cheeseburgers. I'll explain over that, 'kay?"

"No choice?" Kameron said, a miserable note in her voice.

"Nope, definitely not. Why would there be? You're a newbie."

"That's…." She paused, before coming up with a desirable word. "Comforting."

Thalia laughed as she lead her victim in the general direction of the dining area.

On the way there, Kameron could only stare. She'd like to say that she could have nodded, been all, 'Huh, that's cool,' but her main thought was something along the lines of 'WTF?!?' She was normally a calm and collected person (at least she thought so), but the place was starting to scare her, which, unfortunately, was pretty easy to do.

It was no normal camp, that was for sure. What normal summer camp had an armory? The horse stables she could accept, but when she looked a bit closer, she would've sworn some of those horses had wings.

Maybe she'd hit her head and it was a dream. She nodded to herself; that had to be it. She's fallen, hit her head, and--

She gasped. "My cash bag!" she blurted, her eyes going wide.

Thalia turned. "What?" she asked.

"I gambled, and I was near the limo, and I passed out and then I dropped my bag!" Kameron moaned. "Dang, when I wake up it'll probably be gone!"

Thalia gave her a look of confusion, before a light seemed to go off in her head. "Ah, you mean that plastic bag? That was put in your cabin spot. You were in the infirmary. Sorry I hit you so hard, by the way. The bruise on the side of your neck must hurt. A lot."

"Brui--I'm not even going to ask," Kameron sighed. She shook her head.

"We're here," Thalia said a moment later. She pulled Kameron up a series of stone steps to a large, white marble platform. Kameron blinked, looked around at the picnic tables, and then at the ceiling. Or, rather, the lack of one. Several heads swiveled to stare at her, and, unconsciously, she slouched a little bit, walking a couple of steps closer to Thalia. "Oh, don't worry, they don't bite. Most of them, anyways," the punk girl said with a grin. She strolled towards the biggest, most populated table in the mix, shoved Kameron down in one seat, and sat in the one next to her's.

The table went silent as dozens of faces stared blankly at the duo. Each one looked about the same; a glow like quality in the skin that, on closer inspection, Thalia seemed to have, too, pearly-white robes, and quivers stuffed with arrows.

"Chill, I'm explaining the whole situation to her. 'Kay?" Thalia muttered after a few seconds. "Nothing big." As of that was the at-ease call, everyone nodded and began to chat again.

"Cheeseburger and diet coke, please," Thalia ordered. As soon as the words left her mouth, a cheeseburger fell onto her plate, Taco-Ball-commercial-style, and the goblet next to it filled with the desired soda. Kameron stared at it. Thalia turned to grin. "Wait a second, I'll be right back." She stood, walked over to a fire pit, and scraped some of her cheese into the fire. She returned with a smile on her face.

"What?" Kameron said. "How…..?"

"Well…." Thalia paused to think. "You know the ancient Greek Gods, like Zeus and Poseidon?"

"Yes…."

"Well, they're real. They exist. This camp here is a place for kids like me--well, kind of, anyways--who have one of those gods as a mom or dad, and a regular mortal as a mom or dad. Put simply, we're half-human, half-god kids who run around at camp and do stuff." Thalia took a bite of her cheeseburger when she finished. "Get it?"

"Um, no?" Kameron asked. Her head was swimming. "I….I think you need to get to the hospital, quick…."

Thalia chuckled. She held a hand a couple of centimeters in front of her mouth before mumbling through her food, "It's real. I know it's real, because I can do this." She poked Kameron's side. A bolt of electricity passed through her finger into Kameron, and she squeaked, jumping about 6 inches off of the seat.

"Never gets old," Thalia muttered happily. She took a another, larger bite of her meal. "Well, I have Hunt duty to do, you'll be escorted by Annabeth after dinner. I'll be back in time for capture the flag, though, so no worries."

"What?" Kameron said for the billionth time that day.


End file.
